Altus Air Force Base News

 

Altus AFB hosts training for community firefighters

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Megan E. Acs
  • 97th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  Community firefighters participated in structural live fire training, forcible entry door training and confined space entry maze training at Altus AFB, June 24.

The purpose of the training was to give new firefighters from the City of Altus and the City of Frederick hands-on experience to help prepare them for real-world emergencies.

During the first part of the training, firefighters entered the structural live fire trainer in two groups of two. One group was tasked with attacking the fire, and the other was tasked with cooling the room and clearing the smoke through a process called hydraulic ventilation.

Hydraulic ventilation is when smoke and heat is forced out of a room through a door or window using a wide spray of water from a fire hose.

"Instead of a hard, straight stream that you would use to extinguish a fire, we adjust the nozzle to create more of a wide fog pattern," said Philip Fourroux, 97th Civil Engineer Squadron fire chief. "It creates a vacuum behind it and pulls the air from the room into the stream and out the window or door. It gets the smoke out of the room, and the temperature drops. But more importantly, visibility improves, which is important because then you'll be able to find any victims that may be in there."

During the structural live fire training, the firefighters also experienced a mayday exercise, which is when a firefighter becomes incapacitated and has to be removed from the building.

"It was a simulated firefighter down. It taught some of the younger guys what to do in a situation like that," said Mike Davis, 97th Civil Engineer Squadron fire department crew chief. "If you have multiple crews in there and a firefighter goes down, we still have to extinguish that fire, so one crew will get them out and the other will continue fighting the fire. If it goes bad really fast though, then everyone will exit. The number one priority is the life of the firefighters."

Altus AFB is the only nearby location equipped with a structural live fire trainer, and invites community firefighters to train on it at every opportunity, said Fourroux.

"The City of Altus has numerous hazard training facilities, but it doesn't have a room for live fire training, so they can't conduct live fire training unless they use our facility," he said. "This works out just fine, because they have a three story-tower and some other equipment that we don't have so it works back and forth. When they need to use the live fire trainer, they come out here and when we need to use theirs, we go out there."

Training like this is also essential in a profession like firefighting, where the techniques are ever-changing, and an emergency could be called in at any moment.

"Continuing education is a must in the fire service, if you're not training you're falling behind," said Jerry Abbott, the City of Altus fire chief. "The fire service is always evolving with new techniques and information."

Altus AFB currently has 11 mutual aid agreements with the surrounding community fire departments.

Mutual aid agreements are documents stating what Altus AFB and community firefighters will assist other fire departments with in the local area.

"If they call us for help, we'll send an engine," said Davis. "Especially when it starts getting hotter and we get into the wildfire season, we're going to start seeing these guys regularly."

Fourroux said they are expecting a pretty busy wildfire season this year, despite all the recent rain.

"We've gone out on four mutual aid requests already this year to wildfires and cotton-gin fires. The rain that we've gotten to get us out of the drought has been great, but the flip-side to that is it's increased our fire load because all the grass is growing," he said. "When it's hot, it's going to dry off and we'll have a higher potential for wildfires."

Because firefighters regularly work side by side, in dangerous conditions, a good working relationship is vital.

"In our profession as firefighters, we have to be able to depend on each other, outside and inside the gate, it doesn't matter. It's a community, and if we have a major incident on base, we're going to depend on them to help us out and if they have anything in town, they're going to depend on us as well," said Fourroux. "By training together, we're already used to each other when we have a real emergency. We know how the other operates, and we can just merge into a team. It's not base people and city people, it's firefighters in the community coming together to make it all happen."

Many of the firefighters who participated in the training had no hands on experience with a live fire. In order to give them a real taste of what they can expect, the firefighters let the room reach temperatures of up to 1300 degrees.

"Normally, for quick training fires and to keep from exhausting anybody, we keep our fires between 700-800 degrees Fahrenheit. Today, to help the rookie firefighters learn more what a structural fire or house fire that they're going to get to in town, we had some of the fires up to 1,300 degrees ," said Fourroux. "We were at 1,300 degrees and all we were burning was wood pallets and hay, so, if you take an actual structure fire with couches and TVs and plastics, it will get in excess of 2,000 degrees within minutes."

The second part of the training required the rookie firefighters to get on all fours and navigate their way through a confined space entry maze trainer, which is a short, narrow obstacle course with only one way in and out.

In the maze, there was a trick wall, wooden beams the firefighters had to weave through, a teeter totter, and more deceiving obstacles. On top of this, the firefighters were blindfolded, and in full gear, complete with bulky air tanks.

"They have to figure out a way to get themselves out. The biggest thing they're getting out of it is learning how to control their breathing and how not to panic in restricted environments in case they are in a fire and there's a collapse or an area where it's just a little more restricted," said Fourroux. "It gives them the confidence to figure out that even with all their gear they can make it through spaces that mentally they may not think they can get through. It's a confidence builder."

The third portion of the training covered forcible entry, and taught the firefighters how to properly get through a locked door. To force a door open, the firefighters have many tools at their disposal, including hydraulic tools, K-tools and hand tools. During this training, the focus was on hand tools.

"You never know when you get called out to a fire or rescue incident if the doors will be locked," said Fourroux, "We teach them how hard it really is to force a door open, and how to manipulate tools to get the latches on the door past the door jams."

Base and community firefighters stood side by side through every portion of the training, working as one fluid unit to complete the task at hand.

"Without question, I would trust the off-base firefighters to save my life. I have no doubts or worries about the training and the capabilities of on or off base firemen," said Fourroux. "We are all highly trained, highly skilled professionals, and we will meet any challenge that comes our way."